Daniel Lewin was the Akamai co-founder and former Israeli commando believed to be the first person killed in the September 11 attacks. The 2005 opening described him dying "aboard American Airlines Flight 11 during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack," and identified his military background in Sayeret Matkal, "a top-secret counter-terrorism unit." Today's opening calls it only "the September 11 attacks" and drops the description of his counter-terrorism unit, though the word survives three times in the article. A reader today learns Lewin died in the September 11 attacks and not that Wikipedia's own opening once called it a terrorist attack, or that he had served in an elite Israeli counter-terrorism unit.
Read line by line and written up by hand.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01. “terror” appeared 2 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 3.
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The opening as it read in 2005
Lewin ( 1970 – September 11 2001 ) was a mathematician and entrepreneur , best known for cofounding internet company Akamai Technologies . Lewin was born in Denver, Colorado and raised in Jerusalem , where he served for four years in the Israel Defence Forces .1He was an officer in Sayeret Matkal , a top-secret counter-terrorism unit.2He attended the Technion university in Haifa , Israel while simultaneously working at IBM 's research laboratory in Haifa. While at IBM, he was responsible for developing the Genesys system, a processor verification tool that is used widely within IBM and in other companies such as AMD and SGS Thompson. Upon receiving a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science , summa cum laude , in 1995 , he traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts to begin graduate studies toward a Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 . While there, he and his advisor, Professor F. Thomson Leighton , came up with a set of novel algorithms for efficiently delivering large amounts of internet content; these algorithms became the basis for Akamai, which the two founded in 1998. Lewin served as the company's Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and a board member, and during the height of the internet boom, his share of Akamai stock made him nearly a billionaire (at least on paper).3While still a Ph.D. candidate in the Algorithms group at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science , he died aboard American Airlines Flight 11 during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, after allegedly being stabbed or shot. According to reports, Lewin was sitting in seat 9B, and was killed by the passenger in seat 10B at 9:20. That passenger in 10B has been identified as Satam al-Suqami . Lewin was survived by his wife and two sons.4
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16262412.
The opening as it stood in 2010 5 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Daniel "Danny" Mark Lewin ( ); (May 14, 1970 – September 11, 2001) was a mathematician and entrepreneur , best known for co-founding internet company Akamai Technologies . Lewin was born in Denver, Colorado and raised in Jerusalem . He served for four years in the Israel Defence Forces as an officer in Sayeret Matkal , an elite and secretive unit. He attended the Technion university in Haifa , Israel while simultaneously working at IBM 's research laboratory in Haifa. While at IBM, he was responsible for developing the Genesys system , a processor verification tool that is used widely within IBM and in other companies such as AMD and SGS-Thomson . Upon receiving a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science , summa cum laude , in 1995, he traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts to begin graduate studies toward a Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996. While there, he and his advisor, Professor F. Thomson Leighton , came up with innovative algorithms for optimizing Internet traffic. These algorithms became the basis for Akamai, which the two founded in 1998. Lewin served as the company's Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and a board member, and during the height of the internet boom achieved great wealth. He was posthumously named one of the most influential figures of the Internet age.Lewin was killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 during the September 11, 2001 attacks , apparently toward the beginning of the hijacking.A 2002 FAA memo suggests he may have been killed by hijacker Satam al-Suqami after he attempted to foil the hijacking.According to the FAA, Lewin was seated in business class in seat 9B, close to hijackers Mohammed Atta and Satam al Suqami (who was possibly seated behind him).It was first reported that he had been shot by al Suqami, which was later changed to being stabbed.According to Zero Hour , Lewin may have been stabbed in the throat.After his death, the intersection of Main and Vassar Streets in Cambridge was renamed "Danny Lewin Square" in his honor.The award given to the best student-authored paper at the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC) was named after him as the Danny Lewin Best Student Paper Award ."Remarks made by Tom Leighton to commemorate the naming of the STOC Best Student Paper Award in honor of the late Daniel Lewin" .
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The opening as it stood in 2015 18 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Daniel "Danny" Mark Lewin ( ) (May 14, 1970 – September 11, 2001) was an American-Israeli mathematician and entrepreneur who co-founded internet company Akamai Technologies .He died in the September 11 attacks .A passenger on American Airlines Flight 11 , it is believed that Lewin was likely stabbed by one of the hijackers of that flight, and may have been the first person killed during the course of the attacks.New York City. : CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link ) Liel Leibovitz (September 11, 2013).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 668400596.
The opening as it stood in 2020 2 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Daniel Mark Lewin ( ; May 14, 1970 – September 11, 2001), sometimes spelled Levin , was an American–Israeli mathematician and entrepreneur who co-founded internet company Akamai Technologies .A passenger onboard American Airlines Flight 11 , it is believed that Lewin was stabbed by one of the hijackers of that flight, and was the first person murdered during the course of the attacks.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 946057799.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023
American entrepreneur and 9/11 victim Daniel Mark Lewin ( ; May 14, 1970 – September 11, 2001) was an American-Israeli mathematician and entrepreneur who co-founded internet company Akamai Technologies .A passenger on board American Airlines Flight 11 , it is believed that Lewin was stabbed to death by Satam al-Suqami , one of the hijackers of that flight, and was the first victim of the September 11 attacks .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1178668353.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Israeli-American entrepreneur and 9/11 victim Daniel Mark Lewin ( Hebrew : דניאל "דני" מארק לוין ; May 14, 1970 – September 11, 2001) was an American-Israeli mathematician and entrepreneur who co-founded Akamai Technologies . A passenger on board American Airlines Flight 11 , it is believed that Lewin was stabbed to death by Satam al-Suqami , one of the hijackers of that flight, making him the first victim of the September 11 attacks .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1292615652. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
“terror” appeared 2 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 3. Read the current article and compare.
2005
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
terror
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Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined between 2010 and 2025.
Then
mathematician and entrepreneur
Now
american-israeli mathematician and entrepreneur who co-founded akamai technologies
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
